FLOOD MONITORING USING LANDSAT IMAGERY 
(APPLICATION ON THE "LA JOSEFINA" LANDSCAPE) 
Edgar Penaherrera 
Rodrigo Moreno 
CLIRSEN 
Depto. Investigation 
Francisco Aguirre, 190 y Ramon Borja 
Quito, Pichincha Casilla 17-04-10369, Ecuador 
ISPRS Comission VII / Working Group 1 
ABSTRACT 
LANDSAT-TM (Thematic Mapper) imagery that covers wavelengths corresponding to near and middle 
infrared, has the property of showing water bodies with low brightness values, where as vegetation areas 
and bare soils appear with high brightness values. This particular feature and the fact that LANDSAT 
satellites acquire imagery from the same area on earth surface in a cyclic manner (every 16 days), allows 
water-vegetation and water-soil contrasts be very evident when comparing and processing images taken 
on different dates of the year to the end of monitoring floods. These premises were used to present an 
approach that was applied to the "La Josefina" landslide to assess the damaged areas on a section of paute 
river due to damming up of waters and its violent venting happened on may 1st. 1993. The imagery used 
are dated October 15, 1991 and may 13, 1993. 
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